They were hunting for clues that might tell them whether the Utah and New York families were related and, if so, which branches were at risk of developing the form of colon cancer, called attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis.

We're living through a deeply contradictory time when black folks (and what's left of the unions) are the Dems only truly reliable voting block, and yet every other manifesto for Democratic revitalization is some kind of attenuated, okie-doke Souljah-moment retread.

So the conclusion is 'attenuated' in the sense that it is little more than an existence argument: it argues for the existence of something under a very vague description, and Philo wishes to insist and at great length on just how vague that description is.